Procrastinating, Kingdom Saving, and all other forms of Geekdom

Tag Archives: blog

Post navigation

His daughter had played a game on his phone this morning, draining a little more than a quarter of his battery. He still had some time before work, so he plugged it into his charger and went about his normal morning routine. After showering, putting his clothes on, and going downstairs to make his lunch, he kissed his daughter goodbye. It wasn’t until he was halfway to work that he realized he had left his phone at home on the charger.

If he turned around to get it, he would be late. He couldn’t be late. He would have to go the day without his phone.

It felt strange to him to walk around with an empty pocket. He never noticed how much he had grown used to having it with him at all times. The absence of it almost made him feel naked. Still, he had work to do, so he tried to push it out of his mind and get to it.

Suddenly, his ringtone blared loudly in his mind for a few seconds.

It was almost enough to make him jump. As it was, it increased his heart rate and momentarily sped up his breathing. Out of instinct, he reached to his pocket before remembering he didn’t have his phone with him when he came up empty. A glance at the clock showed that it was only twenty minutes until he went to lunch.

The day’s half over, he reminded himself. Only four more hours after I get back from lunch. His lunch dragged on, him not having his phone to update or browse through his social media sites. He was forced to pay attention to some soap opera that was playing on the television. It was mounted on the breakroom wall too high for him to reach the buttons and he couldn’t find the remote. One of his coworkers must’ve hidden it again. Bastards.

After the hellish lunch he just experienced, he was happy to go back to work for once. He had just reached a productive groove when he was interrupted again by the sound of his ringtone. This time he did jump because of how loud it sounded in his head, although he was able to keep himself from reaching for his pocket that time. The clock said that he had only been back from lunch for an hour. Only three more hours to go, he thought.

The next hour breezed through and because he didn’t have his phone, he decided to skip his final break. He found his groove again, doing well above his normal production. Before he knew it, a bell on the wall rang out, signaling that there was ten minutes left in his shift. With his quota hit, he stopped what he was doing and planned on not doing anything until it was time to clock out. Then, he heard his ringtone again.

Like the first two times, it gave him a start, but it didn’t ring out in his head as loudly that time. Annoyed, he vowed to never be stupid enough to forget his phone again.

When he got home, he found his daughter playing with his phone once again. He took it from her and told her to go play with her own toys. She huffed, but did as she was told. As she was walking away, she told him that he was getting texts all day. Only one text showed up, from his wife asking what he wanted to do for dinner. He was going to ask his daughter about it when he saw that he had voicemails. Those had the same alert tone that his texts did. That must have been what she heard.

The first message was from his brother. He listened as his sibling frantically told him that their grandfather had been rushed to the hospital. As the message was playing, he looked through his phone log and saw that the only missed calls he had were from his brother. The other messages had to be from him as well.

Another frantic rambling greeted him on the next one. His brother was practically begging him to call back, saying that it didn’t look good and that the doctors were saying that his grandfather didn’t have much longer. The third message consisted of his brother bawling, telling him that their grandfather had passed away.

Tears began rolling down his cheeks as he put his phone down on the table in front of him. Through the tears, he saw that his phone log was still open. The first call came in twenty minutes before he went to lunch. The second call came an hour after he got back from lunch. The final call came ten minutes before he clocked out.

Crying even harder now, he went through his phone’s settings until it let him play his ringtone. As the music came from the speaker, he buried his face in his hands. His wife came into the room, asking what was wrong. He didn’t hear her, though. He was listening to his ringtone.

Baby E started preschool this year. She only goes for a few hours a day, but it’s enough to let her socialize with children her own age. They color, play, and start to learn their numbers and letters. She was so excited to go to school. Mrs. Revis got a tad emotional about how quickly our little girl is growing up. Her preschool is attached to the actual school she will be attending next year for kindergarten, so she’ll be with the same kids as she moves up in grades (which is cool).

A week before Halloween, their class had their first field trip. They were going to a farm to pick out their own pumpkins. The farm also included a petting zoo, playground, and other kid friendly activities. My wife decreed that one of us had to go with her. I had vacation time. She didn’t. So, I had to volunteer to chaperone on this field trip.

On the signup sheet, it stated that chaperones would be responsible for their child, plus one other. While, I was looking forward to sharing this experience with my daughter, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the “one other”. I’m pretty patient with what I call “my kids”. “My kids” include my daughter, my nieces and nephews, and my friends’ children. I have very little patience with any child that is not one of “my kids”, mainly because I shouldn’t have to deal with them if they’re not on that list.

When we got to the school that morning, it was revealed that because so many parents signed up to go on this trip, I was not being given an extra child to watch after. Woohoo!

Once everyone was accounted for, it was time to get on the bus. Because the school system of our town is independent, they don’t have money to pay for full busing services. Almost all of the kids who attend the school have to get their by either walking or getting dropped off by their parents. I drop my daughter off at school every morning before I go to work. Therefore, she had never been on a bus before. It freaked her out a little. For the first 5-10 minutes of the bus ride, she grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go. Eventually, she got used to it and let go.

When we got to the farm, they first put on a little puppet show for the kids, talking about all the animals they had there and what kinds of crops they grew. Baby E was into it. I quickly became bored. The puppet show mercifully ended and we moved onto the petting zoo. There were all kinds of animals, some you were allowed to pet and some you weren’t. There were the normal farm animals, like cows, horses, and chickens. Then they had some odd ones like llamas and a camel. Her favorite was probably the sheep because they gave the kids food that the sheep would eat right out of their hands.

After that, we loaded up onto a wagon and were pulled along on a tractor ride. This also scared her a little and I had to hold her hand most of the time. The tractor pulled us to the picnic area where we ate. The playground was right next to the picnic tables so kids immediately ate two bites of their lunches and then bolted for the slides and swings. This is also where the chaperoning thing fell apart. Even though I was technically only responsible for Baby E, I found myself watching out for a few other kids who were just running rampant without their chaperones paying any attention.

That particular nightmare didn’t end nearly quick enough for my taste. From there we caught another tractor ride back to the front of the farm where all the kids got together on big bales of hay for a class picture. It was a jumbled mess of kids not wanting to sit still, teachers trying to keep order, and parents watching the whole scene unfold through their phone’s screen.

We got back on the bus as soon as the picture fiasco was finished. By this time, Baby E was wiped out. She crawled up into my arms and fell asleep. She slept the entire way back, except for when the bus hit some bumps. Then she’d open her eyes long enough to look at me, and then she went back to sleep. Since the bus ride was only about 25 minutes, Baby E turned into Princess Crankypants when we got back to the school and I had to wake her up from her nap. I would’ve carried her to the car to avoid that, but holding her on that bus ride had seriously put some pain onto my back. Thankfully, we got to go home after that and we just hung out together for the rest of the day.

Overall, it was a great experience and I’m glad I got to share it with my daughter. But, I still told my wife that the next chaperoning gig is all hers.

It was suggested that my first post of NaBloPoMo be an introduction. I’m not very good at talking about myself, so this will probably cause more questions than answers. I’ll endeavor to give it a go regardless.

On this here blogosphere, I go by the name Revis Edgewater. I am 38 years old. I’m married to the most beautiful and incredible woman on the planet (Mrs. Revis), and we have a 4 year old daughter together (Baby E). They are everything to me. Now, because they are everything to me, and the weekends are really the only time we get to spend together, I’m going to be reposting a serial story that I did a while ago on Saturdays and Sundays this month. I chose this story for a couple of reasons. 1. I just reread it recently and, even if it’s not my best work, I really enjoyed writing it. 2. While you can find it on my blog, it was actually originally posted on StuphBlog, the blog I used to share with my brother.

I have been blogging on here for around 6 years now. I have not been as big a part of the blogging community as I would like. That’s mainly because most of my free time is devoted either to spending time with my girls, or working on numerous writing projects. I have one solo project going on. I also have a couple that I’m working on with my writing partner, Matt of The Matticus Kingdom.

As far as a theme of this blog, or an answer as to what it’s all about…. there is none.

What you see on this blog are just the ramblings of my mind. That can be stories, a few poems, things that happen to me, or just random stuff that pops into my head. There really is no rhyme or reason to the things that I post. I just post on whatever comes to mind and hope people like it.

So, if you like what you read, you’re welcome to keep coming back. If not, no hard feelings. Either way, I hope you have a great day.

Months ago, when I did my “Worth It” post, I told you all that I was working on 3 different stories in some phase of the writing process. One that most of my writing was done on, and mostly just had to worry about editing. The other two I was actively writing on.

Well, all of that is still true.

Unfortunately for my brain, those aren’t the only stories rattling around in my head.

Besides the two novels I’m working on, I’ve also been coming up with new comic book stories. If you click on the My Stories link at the top of my page, you’ll find 3 such stories I’ve already done: Dead Set (my serious one), Captain Procrastination (my off the wall, goofy one that was never meant to be taken seriously), and DICO (which is a little bit of both, although more ridiculous than serious). Two of the story ideas I have are continuations of these already established tales.

I’d like to continue on Dead Set at some point, if only because I stopped writing it in the middle of a story arc. I also have an idea that will tie all my comic stories together and, while I don’t need to continue with this story to do so, it would make things clearer if I did.

The second idea I want to work on is one I started a while ago and gave up because working on it made me realize how much I absolutely loathed writing in script form.

The third idea is to put DICO together with others and have him join a team. Obviously, to do this, I’m going to have to get a little more serious with it. Although, it will never be completely serious. The guy throws nipples for Pete’s sake.

My plan is to have them all happen in the same universe. The other two stories would just take place 10-20 years after the events of Dead Set. Since all of Dead Set so far has been written in story form, that would be how I finished it.

The other two, however pose a problem. I’d rather not write them in story form because I really do want them turned into actual comic books. Given my lack of artistic talent, that is problematic. I can’t draw them and have I mentioned how much I hate hate hate hate hate writing in script form? I also haven’t found anyone willing to draw for me for free, since I have no money to pay anyone to illustrate it for me. So, what to do?

What I think I’m going to do is this: Do two issues of each book, drawing them myself in my ‘stick figure/ a fifth grader could probably draw it better’ style. Once they’re done, I’m going to show them to a select group of people that I know are comic book fans and get their opinions. If they think I’m on the right track (minus the horrible artwork, of course), I’ll continue working on the stories. If they think the books aren’t worth the effort I’m putting into getting them made, I’ll probably just shelve the ideas for a while and see if I can’t come up with some improvements.

So, between my novels and my comic books, I have 6 stories that I’m trying to write at this moment. That doesn’t include the two books I’m reading right now or the ideas I sometimes get for blog posts.

Oy vey…..

Is anyone that reads this blog rich? I need someone to give me a lot of money so I can write full time instead of going to work. Maybe then I could get all the stories to stop fighting for supremacy in my mind.

Mayor Poopenmeyer sat behind his desk, going over the latest city council proposal. In truth, he had very little interest in what was written there. After all, who cared about changes to parking zones? For the tenth time that day, he cursed the restrictions that were put on all the office computers. There was candy that needed crushed, but the site was blocked. He also chided himself for leaving his cell phone at home. From now on, he thought to himself, I need to keep a book in here so I have something better to read when I’m bored.

A knock on his office door made him jump slightly. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was still twenty minutes until his next appointment. The Transit Authority representative was never early. Before he could tell the knocker to come in, the door opened, revealing a thin man wearing tattered clothes. All he wanted to do was yell at the vagrant to get out of his office, but he held his tongue, knowing someone with a cell phone camera was probably within earshot.

“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor,” the man said.

It was probably going to be easier to pretend to listen to the man than to try to have him removed, so the mayor replied, “What can I do for you?”

Today is Thursday. That means it’s my day to post. I’ve been sick the past couple of days, so I really haven’t felt like thinking about writing anything. Because of that, I didn’t really think of a post topic.

So, how do I post if I don’t have a topic? It’s simple.

I went to the almighty Google and looked up some random questions for me to answer. After all, who needs a post topic if all you’re doing is answering questions? Brilliant, I tell you!

So, I picked the first 10 questions on the list, and I will answer them for you. Here we go!

I haven’t done a Random Thought of the Day post in a while. Today’s version will have a theme. I will be addressing certain places or things, giving my opinion on them. Let’s start off with one I think I’ve said before, but I can’t remember so I’m going to say it again.

By the way, I spend all day shipping packages all over the country so a lot of these have to do with city names. Continue reading →